AUDIO: Rickie Lambert speaks to Adam Blackmore about life at Saints

And in the Champions League it should be added.

Though I must admit I am suprised to hear him say so openly how much he regrets leaving here to join you lot.

 

Yeah, he was part of the furniture down there and played some great football, he let his heart rule his head when he decided to come "home", his career stability vanished and he wasnt top of the pecking order here.
But it's nice he got a little bit of what we would all like as supporters.

 

Agreed, and in a weird way it would have been hard to watch him decline down here so in that sense, I'm not bothered by the way things turned out. He was part of my best 5 years as a Saints fan down here as our talisman and was quite simply, incredible in every season. He's the biggest legend down here to whole generation of fans like me who were too young for Le Tiss.

Either way, even though he might regret it now, I'd imagine he'd be regretting more if he never took the chance and was forever wondering 'what if'?

 

I liked this despite the fact you said you were too young for Le Tiss.

 

It's interesting to muse on the way that things sometimes just work out. For a glass-half-empty kind of person, we started that 13-14 season with a main striker who had the pace of an arthritic snail and a dodgy back, a lightweight winger who could never last for more than 60 minutes and an auxiliary striker who couldn't score to save his life.
Yet in that 6 months, with the help of an inspirational manager, a lot of hard work and a sprinkling of serendipity, they gelled into one of the most exciting and effective strike forces in the league.

 

Saints' fans only wished the best for Rickie....the proof was that few wanted to deny him the opportunity to play for Liverpool. A lovely man and a gentleman.

 

Well I'm certainly not going to argue with that. However, it's telling that Rickie was equally effusive about Pards and Nigel. That winning mentality was already at the club when MP1 arrived and it stayed when he departed and RK came in. I think we can all point to when it started to evaporate.

 

Oh for sure, that's not to diminish the qualities of AP or NA. I'm just saying that if you look at the effect at Tottenham as well (and a recent interview with Harry Winks saying how good he is in building up the young players), it's clearly a huge part of his armoury.

 

Rickie Lambert. Born in Liverpool, made in Southampton.